Educação de pessoas com deficiência como direito humano: condições de acesso e permanência nos programas de pós-graduação da Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Abstract

Historically, disabled persons have suffered and continue to suffer from social practices of discrimination, prejudice and exclusion. This reality, which has lasted for many decades, began to undergo modifications in the middle of the XX Century when the State, pressured by a political movement led by disabled persons and their families, decided to promote official actions in order to attend the demands of this segment. On the basis of the social struggles, disabled persons gained the right to education, which was initially developed based on segregated and exclusive practices, obliging the disabled to adjust to the dynamic of the school space. There was little belief in their capacity for learning. In spite of gaining the right to education, which is offered at present based on the paradigm of inclusive education, the theme of access and permanence continues to be a challenge for these persons, above all in postgraduate courses in higher education. In this sense, the present research was developed with the intention of understanding the process of inclusion of disabled students in Postgraduate Programmes (stricto sensu) offered by the Federal University of Paraiba after the implementation of the National Policy of Special Education in the perspective of inclusive education, given the fact that the UFPB possesses a significant number of disabled postgraduate students: there are 14 all told who were identified amongst those successful in selection processes for postgraduate courses in 2018 and 2018. The specific objectives of this study are: to identify the advances and retreats in educational policy for disabled persons starting with the National Policy of Special Education in the perspective of inclusive education; to verify the implementation of the same policy with regard to inclusion, access and permanence of disabled students in Postgraduate Programmes (stricto sensu) offered by the Federal University of Paraiba; to analyse how the Federal University of Paraiba, as a public institution of higher education, guarantees the human right of disabled students to remain in postgraduate programmes (stricto sensu) and to achieve full citizenship by means of access to education. The research uses a qualitative approach, supported by the method of interpretative analysis. It is essentially descriptive and exploratory in character, with the support of bibliographic, documental and field research. The instrument utilized for generating data was the semi-structured interview. The data was analysed in the light of the hermeneutic-dialectic method, during which the discourses of disabled students, coordinators of postgraduate programmes and administrators of the Pro-rectory of Postgraduate Studies‟ Policy of inclusion and accessibility, were analysed. This analysis was based on international and national documents, which guide the elaboration of inclusive public policies and with the theoretical support of Figueira (2008); Silva, A. (2018); Santana (2016); Comparato (2008); Glat (2007), amongst others. Based on these references it was possible to analyse the categories of access and permanence and to identify the challenges that the elaboration of a policy of inclusion for postgraduate studies in the UFPB faces. The study seeks to serve as a partial guideline for the construction of a policy of inclusion and accessibility for postgraduate courses in order to promote the inclusion of disabled persons, given that the results suggest that such a policy does not exist as yet.